Jamdani Elegance

Every Thursday, a few hundred weavers gather at a weekly market at Demra in the capital to sell their hand-made Jamdani saris, which many women have on their desire list ahead of Eid.

The weavers use hand-looms to make saris either at their homes on the campus of the state-run Bangladesh Small and Cottage Industries Corporation (BSCIC) or in nearby villages, said local weaver Monir.

The hard part of weaving a Jamdani is the motifs are neither embroidered nor printed but are painstakingly sewn by hand when the fabric is still on the loom. This makes the work time consuming and labour intensive. Sometimes it takes months to weave a single sari, he said.

Despite their hard work, the weavers' profit is tiny as they do not sell directly to consumers. They have to hand over the saris to the middlemen who do very well selling them at posh shops in Dhaka.

These Jamdani saris are also available at the BSCIC-run stores.